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Posts Tagged ‘dan austin’

Wend Magazine’s Platform – An Interview with Dan Austin of 88Bikes

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Platform is a section in which Wend Magazine donates space to activists working to make the planet a better place to live.

platform601

Dan Austin is executive director and co-founder of 88Bikes, a nonprofit organization that delivers bicycles to children who face challenges due to war, conflict, poverty, disease or other regional hardships. To learn more about 88Bikes, visit 88Bikes.org.

Wend: Tell us about the humble beginnings of 88Bikes.

Austin: My brother, Jared, and I were going to do a ride across Cambodia, and we decided to give our bikes away at the end. Through some contacts at National Geographic, we found a good orphanage in Phnom Penh. We realized a couple (of) weeks before we left, though, that there were 88 kids in the orphanage, meaning 86 kids would be left out. So we threw a fundraiser, launched a website and within four days we had all the donations we needed to give bikes to all 88 kids. It was such a scene of jubilation and pure, unbridled happiness that we knew right then that we needed to do it again.

Click here to read the entire interview by  WEND Magazine.

Fourth Year and Four Locations: 88Bikes Goes to Ghana, India, Nepal and Vietnam

Saturday, December 18th, 2010

CBS Evening News did this story about Co-Founder Dan Austin and 88Bikes work on Project Four.

About 88bikes Foundation

The mission of 88Bikes Foundation is to provide bikes – a sustainable, joyful, empowering form of transportation – to young people in developing countries who have been affected by war, conflict, poverty, disease, or other regional hardships. To do so, they rely on individual donations of $88, which is the approximate cost of a bike in most developing countries.

CBS News – Re-Cycling Hope with 88 Bikes Foundation

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

CBS News
Re-Cycling Hope
March 13, 2010 6:08 PM

Two young Americans are helping others all over the world by giving bikes away to the less fortunate. As Jeff Glor reports, 88Bikes is spreading smiles, two wheels at a time.

New Hybrid.Care Partnership with 88bikes Foundation

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

KEEN is partnering with 88bikes Foundation. The non-profit dedicated to providing bikes to young people in developing countries is the newest KEEN Hybrid.Care partner.

“88bikes is an outstanding organization. Through the power of their all-volunteer staff and the donations that they raise, they have given more than 400 bikes to kids in refugee camps, orphanages and other challenging living situations in developing countries,” commented Linda Tom, Marketing Manager at KEEN.  ”KEEN is proud to support their efforts. They are a perfect fit with our Hybrid.Care program, which partners with social and environmental organizations actively working towards the greater good.”

KEEN will launch the new partnership with 88bike at the Interbike International Trade Expo, which takes place September 23 to 25 in Las Vegas. As part of the launch, KEEN will match the first 100 donations to 88bikes. Donation will buy bikes for their 2010 initiative, which will focus on delivering bikes to children who have been rescued from human trafficking in several countries across a few continents.

As a Hybrid.Care partner, 88bikes will receive funding from KEEN to provide tools and bike maintenance training for bicycle recipients, in addition to the matching donations for bikes.

“We are honored to receive support from KEEN and to join the company of their other impressive Hybrid.Care partners,” said Dan Austin, Founder. “Through their support, we’ll have a strong start to our new campaign, hopefully providing more bikes than ever to kids in need.”

Hybrid.Care was created in 2004 to support social and environmental organizations that have paved the way for change through community, education and understanding. Since 2004, KEEN has partnered with more than 20 global environmental, conservation and social non-profit organizations, and has distributed more than $1.5 million. Other current partners include American Whitewater, Leave No Trace, The Conservation Alliance and the Youth Outdoors Legacy Fund.